- Concord was a huge flop when it was launched and pulled from servers soon after
- Sony has made a major announcement on Concord developer’s future
- Initially, it had been thought the game would be reworked and rereleased
When flop game Concord was pulled from PlayStation 5 and PC last month there were hopes a reworked game would eventually return – but now Sony has dashed those hopes.
Into the sunset
Concord, a hero shooter game, was developed by Firewalk Studios. In September this year, Ryan Ellis, game director at Firewalk, said that their developers would be exploring options for the future of the game.
However, now we know the game will not be returning as Sony has announced that it is closing Firewalk Studios entirely.
In a post issued on its website, Hermen Hulst, CEO of Studio Business Group at Sony Interactive Entertainment, confirmed that the “difficult” decision to close the studio had been made.
“We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options,” read Hulst’s statement. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio.”
In Concord, players worked as part of a team comprising of different characters with individual abilities. Gameplay was either straight deathmatches or involved capturing objects or control of a specific area of the arena.
However, Concord recorded a high of just 660 concurrent users, according to SteamDB. It also received mixed reviews from critics, who said it didn’t offer anything new to the genre. As a result, it was pulled just two weeks after launch and all gamers who had paid $50 for it were refunded.
Possible return
Hulst added that the PvP first-person shooter genre is a “competitive space”. Indeed, it is acknowledged that it is a hard market to crack, with Helldivers 2 being a notable exception this year.
However, Hulst hinted that Sony – or one of the developers it currently owns – could again look to make itself known in this space. He said in the release that, “we will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
Also in the release, it was announced that mobile developer Neon Koi was due to be shuttered too.
